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Project censored makes a valid point, when it contends, slanted or not, that::  

"The unusual discrepancy between exit poll data and the actual vote count in the 2004 election challenges that reliability ...However...the mainstream media...simply parroted the partisan declarations of “sour grapes” and “let’s move on” instead of providing any meaningful analysis of a highly controversial election.

The official vote count for the 2004 election showed that George W. Bush won by three million votes. But exit polls projected a victory margin of five million votes for John Kerry. This eight-million-vote discrepancy is much greater than the error margin.

Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, the two companies hired to do the polling for the Nation Election Pool (a consortium of the nation’s five major broadcasters and the Associated Press), did not immediately provide an explanation for how this could have occurred. They waited until January 19, the eve of the inauguration...

Edison and Mitofsky’s “inaugural” report, “Evaluation of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004,” stated that the discrepancy was “most likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters.” The media widely reported that this report proved the accuracy of the official count and a Bush victory. The body of the report, however, offers no data to substantiate this position."

Argument against the Edison Mitofsky analysis. More. Further case Against the election results. Additional data.  Slanted? Accurate? Additional Ohio problems. Extreme take? More objective view? Detailed analysis More here

A Contrarian take quotes WP Managing Editor Steve Coll in an online chat:

Which is more likely, that an exit polling system that has been consistently wrong and troubled, turned out to be wrong and troubled again, or that a vast conspiracy [was carried out]?

But this raises more questions than it answers. First off, the polls don't indicate fraud, they indicate it as one possibility for an exit poll outside of the margin of error.  The second problem is that while exit polls are clearly not as accurate as the vote totals themselves, Coll well overstates their "wrong and troubled," record, which is why exit polling (until the 2000 razor close election caused a premature declaration) is routinely used to correctly project winners.  Third, particularly since many electronic voting machines provided no verifiable record of actual votes cast (absolutely unacceptable in a democracy), it would not take anything approaching a conspiracy, let alone a vast conspiracy.  On the other hand, an MIT analysis in support of the election results. More on. This National Research Commissions on Elections and Voting also supports the election results. Further related studies.

A look at the issue written well before the election: Prescient?

For a different, and perhaps more sobering set of considerations:  Is this report accurate?  These facts, to the extent true, are certainly of front page importance given the critical nature of voting, in a democracy. 

The report makes several claims, listed below. We find the implications regarding Senator Chuck Hagel to be a bit farfetched.  Despite being a staunch republican, he defended democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004 when Kerry's record regarding support for the military was mischaracterized, and has in other instances repeatedly exhibited character and integrity. More on Hagel here (for some additional facts, however, with respect to the voting issue and the decidedly undemocratic lack of a verifiable paper trail, see here).    Enough of the following claims, however, are fairly objective. They raise, or should raise, serious questions in light of the foregoing analyses on the gross disparities between the exit polling and the officially reported election results.

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